My Wife Rules The World

The man on the right closed his document.

"You have until tomorrow to make the necessary arrangements. This matter is concluded." He looked past Leon to the door. "Bring in the next case."

The guard at Leon's side moved to take his arm.

Leon turned around.

"I need to ask something." His voice came out steadier than he expected. "Two students — Krai Novak and Noah Clove. They were supposed to be heard today. I need to know—"

"That is not your concern." The panelist had already looked back down at his papers. "You are dismissed."

The guard took his arm and pulled him toward the hallway.

Leon let himself be walked. He didn't have anything else to say that would have made a difference.

The hallway outside the hall was plain and long with benches along one wall. The guard was steering him toward the far end when Leon stopped moving entirely.

Noah was coming from the other direction.

He had a guard beside him too, walking him toward the hall. He was looking at the floor, and his face — Leon had known Noah for months, had seen him tired and frustrated and anxious before exams and furious after losing a game. He'd never seen him look like this.

"Noah."

Noah's head came up. He looked at Leon and something moved across his face — confusion, then something that went past confusion. He immediately looked back down.

Leon pulled his arm free from the guard and went to him.

"Noah. What happened." He put his hand on Noah's shoulder. "The announcement on the band — Krai's name — is it a mistake. Where is he, is he—"

Noah was shaking his head slowly, eyes still down.

"Noah, look at me. Tell me what happened. Where is Krai?"

Silence for a moment.

Then Noah looked up and his eyes were wet.

"I'm sorry," he said. His voice was wrong. Too small.

"Stop. Don't — just tell me what happened."

"I'm sorry." He kept saying it. "I'm sorry, Leon. I'm sorry."

"Noah." Leon tightened his grip on his shoulder. "Tell me what happened. Please."

Noah pressed his mouth together. He took a breath.

"That guy," he said. "Grey band. Tristen Riven." He stopped. Swallowed. "He recognized the locket. The one Krai had repaired and was wearing."

Leon waited.

"It belonged to Krai's sister. Maria Novak." Noah's voice was coming apart at the edges. "She was a third year here. Years ago. Tristen was a first year when he met her and he — he became obsessed. He outranked her and he used it. Ordered her to be with him. She kept refusing. So he made her life here impossible. Using his rank, his family's connections. It went on until she—" Noah stopped.

Leon didn't move.

"She killed herself," Noah said. "And Tristen used his family's connections to make sure nothing came of it. The academy doesn't get involved when it's a higher ranked student. So the reason behind it was never found. Her family never knew what happened or why." His jaw was shaking. "That's why Krai came here. Against his family's wishes. To find out what happened to his sister."

Leon's hand on Noah's shoulder had gone completely still.

"When Tristen started talking about it — telling Krai directly, like it was nothing — Krai attacked him. He went for him." Noah's voice broke on the next part. "Tristen's people grabbed him. Held him. And Tristen told them to hold Krai still," Noah said. "And then he started hitting him. Methodically. Not in a rage — like he was making a point." Noah's voice had gone flat in the way voices go when someone is trying to hold something together by not feeling it while saying it. "I went for them and someone caught me from behind. Hit the back of my head and I went down. I don't know how long I was out."

"When I came back to my senses Krai was on the ground and they were still — Tristen was still." He pressed his mouth shut for a second. "I shouted at them to stop. They already had. Because there was nothing left to do."

A long silence.

"I went to him. I kept saying his name. I turned him over and his face—" Noah's breath caught. "I couldn't recognize him, Leon. His face was completely gone. Just — they had beaten it until there was nothing left of it. I kept shaking him. Calling his name. He didn't move. He wasn't breathing."

The hallway was completely silent.

"That's when I invoked the clause," Noah said quietly. "That's all I could do for him."

He stopped.

That was all.

The guard beside Noah put a hand on his arm. "We can't delay the proceeding any further."

Leon moved to follow and the guard at his own side stepped in front of him.

"You can't return to the trial hall. You've been dismissed."

" Let me go..He's—"

"You've been dismissed." The guard was firm about it. "Come with me."

Noah was already being walked away. He didn't look back.

Leon was also forcefully taken down the hallway and out through the building's side exit.

The crowd was still outside. More of them now than when he'd been brought in, clustered around the screen on the building's exterior. Leon stopped near the edge of them.

He'd heard people talking before he'd gone inside — students who'd come specifically because a murder during tournament phase was not something that happened regularly, and the arbitration proceedings that followed were not something the academy usually made visible. The screen had drawn them.

On the feed, the inside of the arbitration hall was visible. The three panelists at the front. The podium.

A door on the screen opened.

Noah walked in. He came to the podium and stood there, and even through a camera and a screen at distance Leon could see exactly how he looked.

The crowd outside went quiet.